Do Atheists celebrate <span >Christmas</span>?
Update:
hmm...i always thought Christmas was a religious holiday..oh well. it's cool I guess.
Update 3:...i just realized my mom is Atheist..she celebrates Christmas too.
Comments
Sure. Why not? The holiday season and even December 25'th was a time of festivities before Christians Hijacked and held the season hostage forcing the name to be changed and the whole thing to be an obsess fest over the J-word.
Normal people who like to have a nice time exchanging gifts with friends/family and decorating the house would like OUR holidays back from the religious nuts. Jesus is NOT the reason for the season. It was there long before Christianity. We refuse to stop enjoying Yuletide/Saturnalia/Solstice/whateverthe… just because someone has the audacity to lay claim to a pagan holiday they stole and changed the name of it.
I personally enjoy celebrating Solstice because it makes sense. The winter equinox is an observable scientific phenomenon. While there are some religious types (Pagan, Wicca, etc) who attach religious significance, I just find it a nice time to enjoy the closing of the year. One more trip around the sun.
The word "Christmas" is just the name the day goes by to me. It means no more to me than Thursday meaning "Thor the god's day".
Yeah, almost all people in the US do, regardless of religion.
It's no longer widely considered a Christian Holiday. It's sad, really. Store greeters at many chains aren't supposed to say "Merry Christmas", but "Happy Holidays" instead. If the term "Christmas" is offensive to someone because it has "Christ" in it, they shouldn't be observing it.
EDIT: As Mark said, it's Pagan. It's not known the exact day of the year(going by certain references in the Bible, many believe Jesus' birth was actually in the Summer), so Christians took the use of a Pagan Holiday and kind of over threw it, I guess you could say.
One of the traditions of the Pagans was to go cut down a tree, bring it inside the home and adorn it with silver and gold, and bow to it(much like the trees we use--watch a child reaching for the gifts under it; it looks like they're bowing to it, huh?).
My whole family is atheist and we celebrate Christmas as a time for getting together with family and friends.
i exchange into raised Christian. My mum and dad (now a million former-xtian and a million Lutheran) have a pair days of the twelve months set aside to delight in eachother's employer (often), have a spectacular meal, and on occasion replace presents or only take a seat around the hearth sipping whiskey for some hours. what form of an fool does not connect in the festivities? i'm no longer likely to church, hell we infrequently went on holiday journeys besides- we only celebrated these days considering exchange into custom and it exchange into relaxing. i don't have a faith telling me i'm no longer allowed to the two
so i will party it up any way i choose for to. On Christmas or Easter, i ought to rejoice ANY form of holiday journeys, because of fact the dates and somewhat a number of the traditions from those holiday journeys have been form of borrowed from a number of different cultures. Wanna be attentive to the humorous ingredient approximately this question? the folk who heavily ask it, by no potential take think of roughly Christmas bushes, colored eggs, Easter bunnies, Santa or the different holiday mascots and traditions you ought to think of of that originated from formerly cultures and with the aid of years of custom have been branded new meanings and given new names and practices. i think of in case you're gonna ask something, you will locate extra recommendations there. Asking this is surprisingly pointless, heresy does not stick to and atheists do no longer likely have anybody to offend by utilising having relaxing on "somebody else's" holiday. How dare we.
Its a different thing for every family. My whole family is atheist and we celebrate Christmas, Although my parents don't buy us gifts because none of us find we need it (I'm 14). Christmas has become sort of "westernised" and a lot of people do it not for religous reasons at all.
Yes. I do. You don't be Christian to celebrate Christmas, it isn't even a Christian holiday, it's Pagan.
christmas is hardly about religion nowadays, its about givin presents, and food, so id guess yea
well like i never see it as "Jesus's birthday", i know thats what it is when it was first celebrated, but now its just like whatever, who goes to church on christmas? not alot of people id think
I knew this girl who was agnostic and she celebrated christmas.
My whole family is atheist, and we celebrate it because it's fun.
We celebrate winter solstice.
my whole family is atheist/agnostic and we still have a tree & ish. cause it's fun even if you're not religious :-)